Certain that the French would protect Chad south of the 16th parallel, Habré started assembling his army, the Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT), at Kalaït, a logistic deposit built by France exactly at the 16th parallel, and which it had stocked with munitions, weapons and fuel. France and the United States had equipped the FANT with a large number of Toyota pickups, and antitank and antiaircraft missile launchers, such as MILANATGWs. The FANT assault under the command of Hassan Djamous deployed almost 3000 soldiers for the coming battle.

Battle

This powerful force attacked Fada, the capital of the Ennedi and a Libyan stronghold, on January 2. Hassan Djamous took the 1,000 Libyan soldiers and the 300&ndash;400 members of the Revolutionary Democratic Council (CDR) militia by surprise. In a short but brutal engagement the FANT almost annihilated the Libyan armoured brigade that defended Fada: 784 Libyans died, 92 T-55 tanks and 33 BMP-1infantry fighting......Read More